


The Language of Flowers

by epic_shish_kabob



Category: DCU, Justice League (2017)
Genre: F/F, Friends to Lovers, Lois Lane falls off some more buildings, background SuperBat, do these two have a ship name yet?, does this count as a rarepair?, flower symbolism, if not I'm calling them WonderReporter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 14:12:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14082699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epic_shish_kabob/pseuds/epic_shish_kabob
Summary: A year after the death of Superman, Lois Lane begins to find strange bouquets of flowers in her house. Strangely enough, they all mean "I love you".





	The Language of Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> There is not nearly enough Lois/Diana fic. I will make this ship happen singlehandedly if I have to.

It rained like hell in Metropolis that day, the cool, heavy rains of autumn. Newly fallen leaves blew through the air like soggy confetti and plastered themselves to cars and sidewalks. The streams of rainwater rushed toward storm drains choked with yellow-green oak flowers. They looked almost fluorescent against gray pavement, gray sky.  
It was cool and wet enough that the stuffy air of Lois Lane’s apartment felt like relief. Abandoning her suitcases in the entryway where they landed on a pile of shoes artfully arranged into daisy shapes. Some of them must have been Clark’s that she had forgotten to get rid of. She collapsed on the sofa and was on the verge of falling asleep right there and then if not for her phone ringing.  
  
“You home yet, Lane?”  
  
Lois winced and jerked the phone away from her ear so violently that she almost dropped the phone. Perry White’s voice thundered out from her speaker.  
  
“Yes,” she said tiredly, deciding that any objection she might have was moot.  
  
“Good. I want whatever was so important ready by next Wednesday,” he shouted before hanging up abruptly.  
  
Lois sighed and tottered on tired feet toward the bathroom, deciding she might as well take a shower before she fell asleep in a sweaty heap on the couch.  
She nearly cut herself on Clark’s old straight razor while rummaging through the bathroom cabinets looking for soap. It had fallen half-open, the hinges loose from years of use.  
She used to find his things all over their apartment, in spaces and closets that had been hers and his, their lives still so intertwined that she became twisted up in herself in his sudden absence. It was six months before she could make it through one of these events without crying, and by the time she could, the stream of Clark’s things had tapered off. The razor simply made her wistfully happy. Dropping the it back in the drawer, she settled on a dusty rose scented soap and headed for the shower.  
  
Entering her bedroom, Lois saw the bouquet immediately. Sitting on the nightstand next to her side of the bed, a leafy array of daffodils and some other flowers she didn’t recognize. The water was clean and the flowers looked fresh.  
It took Lois a moment to notice the card, small, white, and the size of a business card. The paper was thick and spongy beneath her fingers.  
Do you speak the language of flowers? it said in calligraphy that was simultaneously too neat to be handwritten and too personal to be a printout.  
A few minutes of research taught Lois the symbolic meanings of several common flowers. The bouquet was a mixture of daffodil (uncertainty, return my affections, new beginnings), gardenia (secret love, joy, sweet love), and something called linaria bipartita (please notice my feelings for you) which Lois had never heard of.  
Sensing a theme, Lois raised an eyebrow. Running through everyone capable of breaking into her apartment, which was everyone, really. But the doors and windows were locked and undamaged, and she could not think of anyone who had her keys.  
  
Clark would have brought her roses and not cared a whit for their symbolic meanings. Bruce could have picked the lock easily, but when they’d briefly met he seemed more interested in Clark than he was her. And sneaking into her home, maybe, but flowers seemed unlike him.  
  
She considered the actual question that the flowers seemed to be trying to pose.  
I can’t answer until I know who you are, she scrawled on the back of the card on the off chance that the person would return some time. She wondered if she should call the police. Deciding that reporting a strange bouquet as a possible threat was ridiculous, she dismissed the thought and pulled on her pajamas. 

  


The bouquet was almost completely forgotten by the time Lois returned to work of Monday, her thoughts mostly occupied with rumors of secret passageways under Gotham City. The rain had lightened from a gush to a trickle. The occasional waterlogged leaf blew past Lois’ head toward its final destination plastered to a sidewalk or into a multicolored pile. She was squelching through a sodden flower bed in order to avoid a very large puddle.  
  
“Lois Lane,” called Diana Prince from behind her, who had somehow managed to avoid both the puddle and the flowerbed.  
  
“I need your help,” she said as Lois made her way gingerly back toward her.  
  
“Sure. What can I do for you?” Lois asked, stomping her feet to rid them of clinging marigold petals as she stood in front of Diana.  
  
“The tunnels. Underneath Gotham City. I need your help in finding them” Diana said matter-of-factly. “You do know where, they are, correct?” she continued. Lois sighed and decided, screw it, she could say that she had to follow up another lead.  
  
“Of course. Let’s go.”  
Diana grinned and took her hand before leading her toward the nearest bus. 

  


The door that Lois was fairly sure led into the tunnels was surrounded by bizarre graffiti of vines. In the half-light of the ally, she could almost imagine them writhing around her.  
  
“You don’t have to go in if you do not want to. I have what I need,” Diana said.  
  
Lois shook her head.  
“I'd to see what’s down there. Could be interesting,” she said.  
  
“Probably just criminal activity” Diana replied, the corners of her mouth turning up. From someone else, Lois would have found it caustic and patronizing, but Diana’s voice is warm and she is smiling that smile that conveys joy and mischief and wisdom and also somehow respect.  
  
“Might still be fun,” Lois replied, tilting her head to the right. She couldn’t help smiling back. Diana was infectious. 

  


Diana was right, the only inhabitants of the tunnels were smugglers, and not even metahuman ones. Still, they exposed a ring of people selling weapons on the black market. Perry White was so pleased that he forwent shouting at her for two days.  
  
“I enjoyed working with you, Lois” Diana said to her as they parted.  
There was a different bouquet on her nightstand when she returned. All the flowers meant “love”, except for campanula (gratitude).

  


Lois found herself working with Diana more and more often. She occasionally helped Diana locate something Diana probably could have found on her own, but mostly she said she wanted to provide Lois with a good story. Sometimes Diana said that she just enjoyed her company. Every Daily Planet staff member had a different theory about how she got so many quotes from Wonder Woman. Lois quietly ignored their questions and secretly relished their secret. 

  


The bouquets changed about once a week. Usually the flowers meant “love” but there some of them meant “pride” or “hope”. By the fifth week, Lois bought several books about flower symbolism. She also stopped trying to solve the mystery of the flowers. Of course she had her suspicions, but didn’t like the idea of jumping into a relationship so soon or even pursuing one, which sounded unhealthy in an abstract way to her. Still, she did nothing to dissuade the bringer-of-flowers. 

  


I sure do this a lot was the first thing Lois thought as she fell. The panic set in shortly after. It was unlike the panic the first time she fell of a building. The second time she laughed and waited for Clark. The panic gradually gave way to unhurried dread as she wondered what it felt like to hit the ground.  
Diana caught her just as she got close enough to see people on the sidewalks.  
  
“But- but how are you. I didn’t know- are you flying?” Lois inhaled in relief. “I didn’t know you could do that,” she finished dumbly.  
  
“Yes,” Diana was still smiling. “I suppose you are rather used to this?” she said.  
  
“I think you did it better,” Lois admitted, “I always got cold with Clark,” the rush of falling and flying and being so close to Diana destroying all her inhibitions. Diana’s bare arms were strong and abnormally warm against her shoulders and back.  
  
“Where would you like to go?” Diana asked, and Lois told her where she lived. She was almost surprised when Diana left, but she told herself she was getting her confused with Clark and tried to think no more of it.  
  
The next day she drove for hours to find a single rain lily (feelings are reciprocated) and put it in the vase by her bed with fresh water, moving the red roses into the kitchen before going out. She tried not to be disappointed when it was still there.  
She mostly gave up on the person leaving flowers after five days of going out for progressively longer amounts of time. Deciding to stay in on the sixth day, she was surprised by a figure in the blue half-light of her bedroom at twilight.  
  
“How have you been getting in here?” she asked the figure. It sounded more accusatory than she meant it to.  
  
“You gave me your keys, remember? After he died,” Diana replied quietly. She pointed to the rain lily on the table. "Yes?"  
  
“Do you just know what flowers mean off the top of your head?”  
  
“I memorized which ones usually mean yes,” Diana looked at the floor, her smile both joyful and bashful. "In the hope that you would give me one of them."  
Diana crossed the room slightly faster than a human should be able to.  
  
“Does it mean yes?” she cooed in Lois’ ear. She smelled of jasmine and sandalwood and something Lois couldn't place. Diana’s nails traced abstract patterns on her arms.  
“Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism much appreciated!


End file.
